scholarly journals “In the land of elections, the populist man is king”: The online communication of Basta and Vox in the 2019 European elections

Tripodos ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 109-128
Author(s):  
Célia Felícia Belim Rodrigues

This article, having an Iberian circumscription, focuses on populist parties – the Portuguese Basta and the Spanish Vox –, specifically on their online communication conducted in the context of the 2019 European elections. Using the mixed method and having a corpus comprised of Facebook posts (n=40) and videos (n=4), a triple content analysis was conducted: quantitative, qualitative, and rhetorical. The results show that, in terms of substance in Facebook, the two political actors focus more on the building of a sense of ingroup favoritism – in order to explore the feeling of inclusion, being the posts with this thematic substance the most liked, shared, and commented –, are unequivocal in presenting themselves as representatives of popular sovereignty and do not denote conflict in national and European entities. In terms of style, the use of visual image reveals that there are more posts focused on positive emotionality. In the videos, the tone against Europe is more critical and the use of rhetorical diversity is noted, such as emotional bipolarity, Manichaeism, exemplification, use of question mark, recency effect, repetition, factual evidence.

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-165
Author(s):  
Tina Askanius

This article is based on a case study of the online media practices of the militant neo-Nazi organization the Nordic Resistance Movement, currently the biggest and most active extreme-right actor in Scandinavia. I trace a recent turn to humor, irony, and ambiguity in their online communication and the increasing adaptation of stylistic strategies and visual aesthetics of the Alt-Right inspired by online communities such as 4chan, 8chan, Reddit, and Imgur. Drawing on a visual content analysis of memes ( N = 634) created and circulated by the organization, the analysis explores the place of humor, irony, and ambiguity across these cultural expressions of neo-Nazism and how ideas, symbols, and layers of meaning travel back and forth between neo-Nazi and Alt-right groups within Sweden today.


2018 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 783-811 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Prince

AbstractThe study of the Northern Irish Troubles is dominated by ethnic readings of conflict and violence. Drawing on new scholarship from a range of different disciplines and on fresh archival sources, this article questions these explanations. General theories that tie together ethnicity with conflict and violence are shown to be based on definitions that fail to distinguish ethnic identities from other ones. Their claims cannot be taken as being uniquely or even disproportionately associated with ethnicity. Explanatory models specifically developed for the case of modern Ireland do address that weakness. Yet, this article contends, they rest upon the fallacy that the Catholic and Protestant peoples are transhistorical entities. Political ideas, organizations, and actions cannot be reduced to fixed group identities. This article argues instead that the Troubles centered on a political conflict—one over rival visions of modern democracy. The pursuit of equality, the core value of democracy, led not only to conflicts but also to some of those conflicts becoming violent. Focusing on Belfast in the summer and autumn of 1969, this article sets out how the main political actors asserted competing claims to popular sovereignty and traces how multiple dynamic and intersecting conflicts became arrayed around the central one.


2018 ◽  
Vol 325 ◽  
pp. 249-256
Author(s):  
Mihaela Rusu

The previous period of United States presidential elections of 1996 has redirected the relevant scientific research to investigate the correlation online communication - political sphere. Consequently were formulated various paradigms and the most discussed was the democratic paradigm, according to which the representation serve as a basic principle of modern democracy. The study of the level of influence of new communication technologies on political sphere became, for a number of scientific investigations carried out in USA, Canada and later in some European countries such as France, Italy, the UK (in 2000 and since 2007 in Romania), an important objective of empirical research. In most cases, the first stage of the investigation of online political communication has been marked by some methodological problems such as: the changeable nature of web space, the necessity to elaborate new indicators able to represent basic aspects of studied reality, the temporal validity of the data. The elaboration of A Model of Cyber –Interactivity by Sally J. McMillan has contributed to overcome these difficulties and has demonstrated the effectiveness of content analysis as research method used for the study of Web Space dynamic reality. Later, the research team from the University of Rochester (Paul Ferber, Frantz Foltz, Rudy Pugliese) have perfected the two-way interactivity model (elaborated by Sally J. McMillan) and have it completed with three-dimensional model of interactivity for the purpose of quantitative investigation of political websites and to argue that these forms of new media correspond to the ideals of cyberdemocracy.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanidhya D. Tripathi ◽  
Pearman D. Parker ◽  
Arpan V. Prabhu ◽  
Kevin O. Thomas ◽  
Analiz Rodriguez

BACKGROUND Many brain tumor patients commonly utilize online resources such as Reddit as avenues for self-management and support outside of the clinical setting. OBJECTIVE We aimed to examine trends from Reddit discussion treads on brain tumors to identify areas of need in patient care. METHODS We used a qualitative, descriptive design to understand patient and caregivers unmet and met needs. We analyzed the top 100 posts from the ‘braincancer’ subreddit to identify common themes. RESULTS The qualitative content analysis revealed three major topic areas: (1) harnessing hope; (2) moving through the grief process; and (3) expressing gratitude toward other Reddit users. Most of the authors of the posts were patients with brain tumors (n = 32; 36.4%) who used Reddit as a reflective journaling tool to process associated emotions of a challenging diagnosis. CONCLUSIONS This study shows the potential of Reddit to serve as unique group therapy platform for patients affected by brain tumors. Additionally, the results highlight the importance of recommending Reddit as a therapeutic virtual community. Our results highlight the support provided by the Reddit community members as a unique mechanism to assist cancer survivors and caregivers with the emotional processing of living with brain tumors.


2021 ◽  
pp. 175063522110647
Author(s):  
Aiden Hoyle ◽  
Helma van den Berg ◽  
Bertjan Doosje ◽  
Martijn Kitzen

Hostile political actors can use antagonistic strategic narration as a means of marring the image of targeted states in the international arena. The current article presents a content analysis of narratives about the Netherlands that were published by Russian state-sponsored media outlet RT between 2018 and 2020, capturing a period of heightened tension between the states. The authors distil and describe six overarching narratives used to portray the Netherlands as a state of liberal chaos. They analyse them using a framework of strategies underpinning Russian state-sponsored media’s narration, and interpret their strategic functions within the context of recent Dutch–Russian relations. Finally, they provide directions for future research, such as expanding on nuances within Russian media’s negative portrayals of different states or exploring the possible psychological responses this narration may elicit in the Dutch domestic audience.


Author(s):  
Christopher F. Karpowitz

A powerful tool for content analysis, DICTION allows scholars to illuminate the ideas, perspectives, and linguistic tendencies of a wide variety of political actors. At its best, a tool like DICTION allows scholars not just to describe the features of political language, but also to analyze the causes and the consequences those features in ways that advance our understanding political communication more broadly. Effective analysis involves helping academic audiences understand what the measures being used mean, how the results relate to broader theoretical constructs, and the extent to which findings reveal something important about the political world. This involves exploring both the causes and the consequences of linguistic choices, including by attending closely to how those texts are received by their intended audiences. In this chapter, the authors review ways in which DICTION has been used and might be used to better understand the role of political leadership, the meaning of democracy, and the effects of political language on the political behavior of ordinary citizens.


2015 ◽  
pp. 1307-1330
Author(s):  
Karolina Koc-Michalska ◽  
Darren G. Lilleker

Comparative studies are rare in the study of online communication campaigning. The authors chose two cases, Poland and France, to describe the two campaigns for the Parliamentary elections. Content analysis allowed the authors to detect online communication strategies and parties' attempt to reach different audiences. Web-cartography illustrates the parties' network connections. The authors find strong cross-country and resource-based differences for the more interactive and engaging features (Web 2.0), which are not that powerful for explaining audience-targeting strategies. Overall a sales strategy and a focus on marketing dominated over e-representation (exhibiting the parties' political record). In both countries social media platforms are well incorporated into online strategies. Facebook dominates in Poland, Twitter in France. Web cartography gives a counterintuitive picture of the Polish parties' network being much more personalized but also of more ghettoing within the supporting environment.


Author(s):  
Fernando Oliveira-Brochado

Luxury restaurants are expected to offer outstanding culinary talent and expertise; be authentic, creative and consistent; and provide exciting quality food. Currently, culinary art discourses include a social dimension in which social networking sites are used to share gastronomic experiences and check recommendations. User-generated reviews are thus an intersection of participatory culture and ‘foodie' discoures. This study's main objective was to examine this phenomenon by analysing web reviews to identify the expressive dimensions that describe guests' experiences. Mixed-method content analysis was selected for this research, using qualitative text interpretation to supplement quantitative word counts and factor analyses. Content analysis of reviews of the top three Michelin-starred restaurants (i.e., two stars) in Portugal identified concepts used to assess haute cuisine experiences from the client's perspective. The results include a concept map encompassing the following dimensions: ‘food', ‘restaurant', ‘experience', ‘menu', ‘wine', ‘special (dinner)', ‘view', ‘beautiful (food)', ‘friendly (staff)', ‘chef', ‘visit' and ‘dessert'.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 15-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zohreh Dehdashti Shahrokh ◽  
Pedram Behyar

Virtual communities are very impressive in the activities associated with the business using facilities provided on the Web and broad access to consumers. More access to users also helps virtual communities to be leading in attracting more users in competition with the other virtual communities. In this regard, providing the model of consumers' participation in virtual communities can be effective in the competitive environment from the cognitive aspects of consumer behavior. The aim of this study is to design consumers' participation model in virtual communities. The mixed method is selected as the research method and in the qualitative section, semi-structured interviews were conducted among the panel of experts; after analyzing the results using the content analysis, the designed model was finally tested. The results showed that in addition to personal and social factors and the services offered by the website, the other factors such as attitudes and we-intentions have also significant impact on the consumers' participation.


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